Not All Movie Rewards Programs Are Created Equal (3 Viewers)

[Todd Erwin]

If you’ve been collecting physical media and redeeming the included digital copy codes, then you are likely aware of the movie rewards programs offered by three of the studios – Disney (which now includes Fox), Sony, and Universal. How do they compare to one another?
 

Disney Movie Insiders
Formerly Disney Movie Rewards, the program was revamped and relaunched on September 26, 2019 as Disney Movie Insiders. As before, Disney (and newer Fox) DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD Blu-ray releases will have a code inside that you can redeem for points in the rewards program. Back in the DMR days, you could redeem your points for physical rewards such as other Disney DVDs, Blu-rays, and UHD Blu-ray, but also collectible merchandise like pins, soundtrack CDs, posters, etc. After the transition to DMI, physical rewards were for the...

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[Malcolm R]

Yeah, I used to use the Disney program when they offered discs, but haven't bothered since they got rid of them.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Yeah, I used to use the Disney program when they offered discs, but haven't bothered since they got rid of them.

I took advantage of their "clearance sale" just before the revamp. The have frozen expiration dates on points for the time being, thankfully.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I still enter the Disney points when I get codes out of habit, but I agree with others here. The unnecessary revamp has made it essentially a useless program. I haven't seen anything I wanted to redeem since the changeover. This is ironic because I now have the largest amount of points I've ever had at any one time and nothing to spend them on.

Prior to the current freeze, Disney points only expired if you didn't enter any codes for a year. That has never been an issue for me because I would never go a whole year between buying Disney discs anyway.

 

[David Norman]

I still enter the Disney points when I get codes out of habit, but I agree with others here. The unnecessary revamp has made it essentially a useless program. I haven't seen anything I wanted to redeem since the changeover. This is ironic because I now have the largest amount of points I've ever had at any one time and nothing to spend them on.

Prior to the current freeze, Disney points only expired if you didn't enter any codes for a year. That has never been an issue for me because I would never go a whole year between buying Disney discs anyway.

Even if you didn't buy discs there usually are a couple sets of free points every month as well.

Usually reall and made up holidays, a couple hundred points in December, the monthly newsletter usually gives 5 points and you don't even hae to subscribe to the newsletter. So far the link has been identical for nearly a year - just click through the link and signin to your account for point.

https://www.disneymovieinsiders.com/?newsletter=mysterypoints

It's usually activated it seems randomly around the middle of the month (10-20th) and will redeem once until it resets on the 1st of each month. In May it was the 2nd though that seems to be a fluke and was a week earlier than it had ever activated, June it was the 16th which is more typical, and July hasn't gone live yet.
If you click before it's activate during a month you'll get a Newsletter Error message.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The freebie code DISNEYHITS is now active and worth 20 points. One redemption per member.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Universal is offering 50 free bonus points to new members of their Universal Rewards All Access. No code required.

 

[David Norman]

The Sony Program seems to be one of the better programs for now. At least you can accumulate movies (digital only now) with them and points which later can be used for Gift Cards or other items. If you have a Sony CoBranded CC, the purchases also give rewards points. Every year or two I've ended up with $25 or even $50 in Gift Cards.

Register 5 qualified titles in their Movie Buff App and get a code for a Digital Copy chosen from a select group of titles. Disc registration is done with the Digital Code sheets that came with the movies. This is separate from the actually digital redemptions
First disc registered get a Newbie Award which gets your first digital code and each registration is worth 45 points.

Downside -- not all Sony/Columbia codes qualify for registration and the redemptions are somewhat limited though do change every few months.
It's smartphone app only now. The PC version was canned a few months ago.
Limited to 10 disc registrations per month
Limited to 24 Movie Buff Passes per account (basically 25 free movies).

Upside -- the choices now include several UHD digital copies.
You're supposed to be limited to 1 account, but many people who have maxed out have registered a new account email and started over. So far nobody has been suspended or cancelled

Originally the allowed Bluray Rewards, then added a few Digital only, then went digital only.
Each time the program has changed it seems they reactivate many of the codes so I've registered the same code 3 or 4 times over the years.


The current list of redemptions include. Normally there have been 20-25 choices, but when they added the 4K rewards the number of rewards dropped substantially. Hopefully this is temporary b/c I'm pretty much down to a couple options again.
All the Money in the World 4K
Alpha 4K
Anger Management
Brightburn 4K
Escape Room 4K
Hotel Transylvania 3 4K
MiB International 4K
Slender Man 4K
Spider-man Far From Home 4K
Surfs Up
The 6th Day
The Angry Birds 2 4K
The Night Before 4K
The Star 4K
White Boy Rick 4K

 

[David Norman]

DMI posted on their Facebook page that around 9/16 they expect to have at least some Physical Rewards back. I guess I'll believe it when I see it given their recent history of misstatements

If you sign in now --
DMI Anniversary should automatically give you 15 points
WISHGRANTED promo code for another 20

and if you have a Sept Birthday another 25 points -- learning from the other forum that a ton of us have Sept DOB -- Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and mid winter recreation at it's finest

 

[Todd Erwin]

All the Money in the World 4K
Alpha 4K
Anger Management
Brightburn 4K
Escape Room 4K
Hotel Transylvania 3 4K
MiB International 4K
Slender Man 4K
Spider-man Far From Home 4K
Surfs Up
The 6th Day
The Angry Birds 2 4K
The Night Before 4K
The Star 4K
White Boy Rick 4K

That list has stagnated once again, with no new changes in months.

 

[Todd Erwin]

DMI posted on their Facebook page that around 9/16 they expect to have at least some Physical Rewards back.

Desperately waiting for Universal to begin their physical rewards and change out their list of free digital movies.

 

[David Norman]

That list has stagnated once again, with no new changes in months.

They seem to update every 6-9 months or so, but even that is irregular. I finally ran out of old disc codes to register so I'm a lot slower now than in the past, but I think of the current selections there's only 2 I don't have already. I've exhausted Sony choices so many times I've lost count and had to wait months for something new to pickup. I even end up with stuff I really dislike -- Emoji Movie -- just to be able to use a freebie code. They've reset their redemption so many times I can't remember how many times I've redeemed the same code multiple times, but it's just weird what items qualify and which don;t -- 3 of the 4K codes out of the Columbia Box work, 3 don't

I'm really really antsy to see what Disney finally puts up. The shut down right before SW9 came out so I missed getting that Original Poster which I need to complete the Sequel Trilogy set. The new Black Widow movie hopefully will also have a real poster offered.

I tried to drag some information out of DMC customer reps the other day about new exclusive or possibly Fantasia in Nov, but either they don't know anything yet or can't say yet.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I have more points with Disney than I've ever had before at any one time, because I haven't had anything worth using them on since physical rewards went away.. So I'm very curious to see what they offer, as I definitely have the points to get almost anything I would have wanted at the normal point levels before the changeover.

 

[David Norman]

I'm back to 30K (again). Seems I hit 45K at one point back in 2015 then spent a bunch on Christmas gifts -- a bunch of Jim Shore items before they were stopped. Slowly built back to 30K last summer and I spent 12-15K during the clearance sale last year and got tons of items, but things (about 30 posters and a few other things) were so cheap I still only managed to get down to around 13-14K so I been sitting on those and ended up wiht a bunch of 4K upgrades so now I'm back to where I started. All but one item arrived OK -- my Maleficent 2 Teaser poster went missing, but for 150 points it just wasn;t worth worrying about.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Oh, I've never had that many.

Usually, I fixate on one reward and then save up points to get it. When I have enough to redeem, I do that immediately, which takes me back down to zero-ish (or however many points are leftover from the last code I entered just before getting enough points to redeem it.). Then I pick another reward to aim for and build back up and do it over again.

This has worked pretty well for me since the program originally launched on October 3, 2016 with the release of The Little Mermaid Platinum Edition DVD, which was the first release to come with points. But I've never aimed something super-expensive like sculptures or studio experiences. I mostly aim for catalog Blu-rays that I didn't manage to get when they were new, posters, or occasionally a CD back when they offered those. These are usually overpriced, but still a smaller point value than the really expensive stuff.

The last reward I got, from the sale, was the Blu-ray of Age of Ultron. I was delighted to see that it was the original artwork from its 2015 release, not the bland re-release artwork it has been subjected to since. I'm very curious to see what they bring back. It's 12 days until the 16th, which is the date they indicated on Facebook.

 

[tns49]

The Sony Program seems to be one of the better programs for now. At least you can accumulate movies (digital only now) with them and points which later can be used for Gift Cards or other items. If you have a Sony CoBranded CC, the purchases also give rewards points. Every year or two I've ended up with $25 or even $50 in Gift Cards

Universal is offering 50 free bonus points to new members of their Universal Rewards All Access. No code required.

Its sad to say that the Sony program is still one of the better ones. It used to be much better. The Movie Buff (after each 5 registered movies) use to give you a much wider selection of titles with real disc Blu-ray disc (usually with a new code towards next 5 registered titles and often digital code to use). And almost Sony discs could be registerd, e.g. in the Columbia collection only some of the tiles can be registered.

 

[Jake Lipson]

The shut down right before SW9 came out so I missed getting that Original Poster which I need to complete the Sequel Trilogy set.

You got your wish. I just saw this on the Disney Movie Insiders Facebook page with some pictures of rewards that will be available on Wednesday.



Also listed on Facebook are Blu-rays of The Incredibles, Brave and Coco for "1,200 - 1,500 points" and a Funko pop of Mulan from the live-action remake for 750 points. Coco is the standard Blu-ray+DVD+digital copy edition; The Incredibles and Brave are the Blu-ray + digital (no DVD) reissues from a few years ago with big heads on the cover art.

An email I received sometime last week announcing the return of physical rewards pictured Blu-rays of The Little Mermaid (interestingly, the old Diamond Edition from 2013, not the current Signature Collection version); Coco; the original release of The Force Awakens; the Beauty and the Beast live-action remake; and the 4K edition of Black Panther. It also showed what look like Funko pops of Olaf from Frozen and Ian from Onward. None of these shown in the email included price points.

As usual, I think the Blu-rays are overpriced relative to their value, especially since all of those movies are older and on Disney+, but I'll probably bite if there are titles I really want.

 

[Osato]

You got your wish. I just saw this on the Disney Movie Insiders Facebook page with some pictures of rewards that will be available on Wednesday.

View attachment 78455

Also listed on Facebook are Blu-rays of The Incredibles, Brave and Coco for "1,200 - 1,500 points" and a Funko pop of Mulan from the live-action remake for 750 points. Coco is the standard Blu-ray+DVD+digital copy edition; The Incredibles and Brave are the Blu-ray + digital (no DVD) reissues from a few years ago with big heads on the cover art.

An email I received sometime last week announcing the return of physical rewards pictured Blu-rays of The Little Mermaid (interestingly, the old Diamond Edition from 2013, not the current Signature Collection version); Coco; the original release of The Force Awakens; the Beauty and the Beast live-action remake; and the 4K edition of Black Panther. It also showed what look like Funko pops of Olaf from Frozen and Ian from Onward. None of these shown in the email included price points.

As usual, I think the Blu-rays are overpriced relative to their value, especially since all of those movies are older and on Disney+, but I'll probably bite if there are titles I really want.

thanks!

what time will this go live? I have 3000 points and I’d love to get something even if it’s just a Star Wars poster.

thanks

 

[Jake Lipson]

what time will this go live?

I don't have any more information than what they have announced publicly. However, It says on that image I pulled from their Facebook page that the poster will be available beginning at 9am PT, so I would guess that that is when all of the rewards will be going live. I've also heard that there will be new rewards every Wednesday, although I don't know what will be added n future weeks that won't be there this Wednesday.

I suspect that they will have a wider selection than we currently know about, because the stuff they have mentioned is pretty minimal at this point. We will probably have to wait and see what all goes up when they flip the switch on Wednesday.

All that being said,

I would be really surprised if you have any trouble getting a poster if you log in on any time on Wednesday. It's possible that they might get a rush of orders because people have been sitting on points for a long time, but still. In all my time as a member of the previous Movie Rewards iteration, I never saw anything that I want sell out within a day or two. They usually had stuff for a good while, particularly if it's a Blu-ray they're trying to clear out.

 

[Osato]

I don't have any more information than what they have announced publicly. However, It says on that image I pulled from their Facebook page that the poster will be available beginning at 9am PT, so I would guess that that is when all of the rewards will be going live. I've also heard that there will be new rewards every Wednesday, although I don't know what will be added n future weeks that won't be there this Wednesday.

I suspect that they will have a wider selection than we currently know about, because the stuff they have mentioned is pretty minimal at this point. We will probably have to wait and see what all goes up when they flip the switch on Wednesday.

until the morning then....